The invention relates to an escalator or a moving walkway consisting of a support, a step belt with steps or plate belt with belts for the transport of persons and/or articles and a balustrade, which is mounted by means of a balustrade pedestal, with a handrail, wherein a deflector device arranged at the balustrade pedestal prevents jamming of body parts and/or objects between the step belt, which consists of individual steps, and the balustrade pedestal.
There has become known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,719 a safety device which prevents jamming between an escalator step belt, which consists of individual steps, and a pedestal plate. The safety device, conceived as a deflector, consists of a support profile member and brush elements. The support profile member, arranged at the balustrade pedestal, has at the step side a profiled opening into which the brush elements are insertable. A brush element consists of a brush body which grips the brush. The brush body is introduced at the front side (from the step side) into the profiled opening of the support profile member. After mounting of the brush element a wedge element is pushed from one end of the support profile member between the upper wall of the support profile member and the brush body, wherein the wedge element is firmly held by a rib of the brush body.
This safety device requires that the wedge element be pushed in a longitudinal direction into the support profile member for fixing the brush element provided as a deflector. Depending on the respective material strength of the support profile member and the brush body, this task can be laborious and involved due to the frictional forces to be overcome. When the deflector is contoured to accommodate a (radiussing) transition from the inclined part to the horizontal part of the escalator, additional frictional forces have to be overcome when the wedge element is pushed in.
The purpose of the present invention is to overcome the deficiencies of the prior art and is directed to a safety device which can be mounted simply and quickly at the pedestal of the escalator.
In accordance with the purpose, the invention is a deflector device which comprises a profile member and a brush unit which is connected to the profile member by a snap connection.
The advantages achieved by the invention are substantially to be seen in that mounting of the brush unit is possible with little effort. If an exchange of the brush units is necessary, the old brush units can be removed by simple means and the new brush units mounted on the existing support profile member by snapping in and without use of tools. The need to divide the safety device into straight course parts and curved parts is superfluous. By virtue of the snap-in device according to the invention an endless deflector can be realised which is independent of directional changes predetermined by the course of the steps.